From Annoying To Tragic: Facebook Apologizes For ‘Year in Review’ Posts

If you are a regular user this festive season, you've probably seen a flood of Facebook "Year In Review" posts - a sort of digital card highlighting the biggest moments of 2014, algorithmically customized for each user. A whole year can be full of ups and downs, but the algorithm Facebook used to highlight accounts’ most-liked photos didn't allow users to choose which photos they want to highlight–eliminating the chance to leave out pictures people may not have wanted to be reminded were there.
Writer and web design consultant, Eric Meyer wrote in a blog post that because he lost his six-year-old daughter to brain cancer in 2014, his year hadn't been “great,” as the uniform Facebook post declared.

“For those of us who lived through the death of loved ones, or spent extended time in the hospital, or were hit by divorce or losing a job or any one of a hundred crises, we might not want another look at this past year,” Meyer wrote. “To show me Rebecca’s face and say “Here’s what your year looked like!” is jarring. It feels wrong, and coming from an actual person, it would be wrong. Coming from code, it’s just unfortunate.”

In a statement, Jonathan Gheller, the product manager for Facebook's "Year in Review" app, said he had reached out to Meyer and apologized for any pain the post has caused.

“[The app] was awesome for a lot of people, but clearly in this case we brought him grief rather than joy, “It’s valuable feedback,” Gheller said. “We can do better — I’m very grateful he took the time in his grief to write the blog post.” 

"The team behind the app is considering ways to improve it for next time and will take Meyer's concerns into account", he said, although he did not comment on if they would follow Meyer's specific suggestions.